When Fr Toub Anisong Chanthavong SVD took the short trip from Thailand to Laos in December for three months of home leave with his family, it never occurred to him that a worldwide pandemic would prevent him from returning to his ministry for many months.

Toub had been set to take up a new parish assignment as assistant priest in Ban Phongsoung, Thailand upon his return from home leave, but instead, has been keeping himself busy in various forms of ministry and service in Laos.

The SVD community in Myanmar has visited a refugee camp on the outskirts of Hmawbi Township, the town where they live, taking supplies to help the people survive in their precarious situation.

Fr Tuyen Nguyen,Fr Deva Savariyappan and Fr Mariusz Kubista  visited the Rakahine refugee camp in Taikkyee Gone village to assist the people who have fled from their conflict-torn home, leaving behind their houses and livelihoods.

The coronavirus pandemic kept Emerald’s new priests away from their flock for a while but not from their garden, The Catholic Leader reports.

Divine Word Missionaries Fr Truc Quoc Phan and Fr Firminus (Yon) Wiryono are new to Emerald, in the Central Highlands of Queensland, and to Rockhampton diocese.

The SVD AUS Province is to receive a new member as soon as the pandemic allows, with Fr Tommy Lehan SVD due to take up a mission assignment in Thailand.

Fr Tommy was born in Boas, Indonesia in 1990 and raised in Atambua, the main city of the Belu district.

Born and raised on the Mekong Delta river in South Vietnam, Fr Long Nguyen SVD could have ended up a businessman, but instead he chose to become a missionary priest and he is looking forward to taking up his first assignment, in Australia.

It’s not Fr Long’s first time in Australia though. He spent a year here in 2012 as part of his training with the Divine Word Missionaries, as well as a year in Thailand, and he couldn’t wait to come back.

One of the wonderful things about our SVD AUS Province is that we are blessed to have young men from all over the world completing their formation at Dorish Maru College in Melbourne.

This constant influx of youth and energy keeps us young as a Province and their energy spills over into many aspects of our lives and ministry.

It’s been a time of farewells and new beginnings for some of the SVD missionaries in the Thailand District of the AUS Province, with the Bishop of Udon Thani reassigning them to take on new challenges in a different area of the diocese.

The SVDs had been working in the area of Ban Dung in northern Thailand for some time, taking care of large parishes as well as small, deserted churches in different villages. Their new assignments will take three of the confreres to another province, BuengKan, which borders Laos.

We think of Pentecost as that special time when the Holy Spirit came down upon the disciples in the upper room (Acts 2:1-13). Even though all the disciples were Galileans, they began to speak in many different languages which were, nonetheless, understood by the many people present. This came to be known as “speaking in tongues”. The Holy Spirit is indeed a Spirit of both diversity and unity, writes Fr Michael Knight SVD.

This is a very different outcome to a certain situation portrayed in the Book of Genesis, Chapter 11:1-9, in which people who speak the same language come together to build a tower (The Tower of Babel) that will supposedly reach heaven itself and make the people to be like gods.. To counter this sin of ego driven pride, God causes many languages to arise amongst those constructing the Tower and the result is that the whole project comes to an abrupt halt in complete and utter confusion.

The Holy Spirit Missionary Sisters are celebrating 75 years of their presence in Brisbane this year, though the planned celebrations on the anniversary day, March 28, had to be cancelled because of the COVID-19 pandemic restrictions.T

Eighteen Holy Spirit Sisters, who were survivors of the Japanese prison camps and death ships in Papua New Guinea during World War II, arrived in Brisbane in May 1944, joining five others who had come earlier, after trekking for months across the mountains and valleys of PNG. Fifty-four of their Sisters had died tragically during the War.

Divine Word Missionary students and academics might have had their face-to-face lectures cancelled and all lessons moved online, but they are not letting the COVID-19 crisis dim their missionary zeal.

In fact, the students say that the coronavirus restrictions have forced them to adapt to changing circumstances and continue to reach out to people online, in person and in prayer, all of which are necessary attributes for a life of mission in the modern world.